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Gene Autry Entertains<br />
Dayton Veterans Home<br />
DAYTON—When Gene Autry, cowboy star,<br />
visited the Veterans administration center<br />
here March 31, it was like old times for<br />
Vernon Oiler, a patient at Brown hospital.<br />
Oiler, a veteran of the navy air force, had<br />
known Autry when he visited the Caroline<br />
Islands in 1946. Autry made two appearances<br />
at the Veterans home, one at Barney<br />
community center and played two shows at<br />
Memorial Hall. He sang for several hundred<br />
veterans at the home's auditorium, then<br />
toured the wards, shaking hands and singing<br />
requests. With him was his guitaristaccompanist,<br />
lanky Columbia Pictures player<br />
Johnny Bond. Autry's Dayton stop was part<br />
of a 32-day tour which began in Wichita on<br />
March 22 and will end in Baltimore April 27.<br />
Autry left Dayton for Columbus in his own<br />
Beechcraft twinmotor plane. His horse<br />
Champion followed in a special bus.<br />
. . Motion<br />
Can Bernardino, Calif. other houses in northwestern Ohio,<br />
from the BOXOFFICE Files<br />
• • •<br />
(Twenty Years Ago)<br />
J^LBERT A. MILLMAN, organizer of the<br />
International Film exchange of New<br />
York, has opened an office in Cleveland at<br />
203 Film Exchange Bldg. This is the first<br />
link of a national distribution organization<br />
headed by John McKay, former general manager<br />
of Mayflower Pictures Corp. which made<br />
"The Miracle Man" for Paramount .<br />
picture theatres can operate on Sun-<br />
days in Shaker Heights, exclusive residential<br />
suburb of Cleveland, so far as city officials<br />
are concerned. There is no local legislation<br />
against Sunday operation, but prior to<br />
construction of a new theatre at Kinsman<br />
and Lee roads, the council was asked as<br />
to their attitude on Sunday shows. They<br />
agreed to pass no adverse legislation.<br />
* «<br />
HARRISBURG—Gene Autry, who uses an<br />
air-borne saddle The new<br />
for Loop<br />
his opened gittin'<br />
at<br />
along, landed<br />
Cass and Michigan<br />
his twin-engine Beechcraft<br />
avenues in Detroit<br />
in New<br />
a<br />
Alexandria<br />
Wednesday last week<br />
few months ago<br />
by Alex Schreiber, and<br />
after<br />
has a<br />
discovering<br />
beautiful electric<br />
that Johnstown's sign, a<br />
municipal<br />
creation of the<br />
airport was<br />
McNamara Sign<br />
"socked in" with<br />
Co. of Detroit . . .<br />
overcast. He made Ray Colvin,<br />
his Johnstown<br />
appearances<br />
Detroit manager<br />
of<br />
and took<br />
the<br />
a bus<br />
National Theatre<br />
to Harrisburg.<br />
Gene<br />
Supply Co. in<br />
Detroit,<br />
is a veteran<br />
says<br />
of<br />
business is<br />
three years<br />
a little<br />
of<br />
slow because<br />
so<br />
service with the air transport command<br />
many new houses have been completed<br />
and<br />
and has about 4,000 hours in<br />
opened.<br />
the air. Thieves<br />
The sales staff of NSS<br />
looted the Autry troupe's bus<br />
comprises<br />
at Johnstown.<br />
Ernie Forbes and Glei-m Brady<br />
in Detroit and J. B. Schuyler in the state,<br />
with headquarters in Grand Rapids.<br />
Grosses Down 1 1 Per Cent,<br />
Ohio Tax Returns Show<br />
COLUMBUS—Picture business in Ohio is<br />
down approximately 11 per cent as reflected<br />
in the admission tax collections for January<br />
and February 1948. The collection for the<br />
USED SEATS<br />
first two months of 1948 was $54,099,193 as<br />
HOO spring-bottom veneer back theatre seats compared with $60,589,890 for the same period<br />
Virginia.<br />
A-1 condition; J3 each, F, O. B, Wheeling<br />
West of 1947.<br />
Contact<br />
JACK McGRATH<br />
1046 Broadway 5-5055 Albany, N. Y, Ritz, Ford to Allegheny<br />
FORD CITY, PA.—Ritz and Ford here<br />
have been transferred by Allegheny Theatre<br />
PLANNING<br />
Enterprises to Leo Galonis, who assumed<br />
operation April 11, Andy Gibson, head of the<br />
former exhibiting setup, was affiliated with<br />
the Nick Dipson theatre enterprises. The<br />
theatres will be represented by Cooperative<br />
A<br />
Theatre Service for film buying and booking.<br />
DRIVE-IN?<br />
Build Under the<br />
Variety Gives 16mm Outfit<br />
CLEVELAND—Cleveland Variety Tent 6<br />
has presented Marine hospital of this city<br />
with a complete 16mm soimd equipment as<br />
Moonlight<br />
well as a library of films. This is part of<br />
the club's heart project, which includes free<br />
I Movies<br />
film service to some 32 institutions for<br />
shut-ins.<br />
SYstem<br />
Named Barnesboro Pilot<br />
We furnish your construction plans by BARNESBORO, PA.—Ernest Lieberman<br />
a licensed engineer and license under has named Dom Valerie manager of Smith's<br />
Patent App. 7179.<br />
Theatre here. Valerie Is a local boy.<br />
Write or Wire<br />
Jack Armstrong Renamed<br />
MOONLIGHT MOVIES SYSTEM<br />
BO'WLING GREEN, OHIO—Jack Armstrong,<br />
general manager of the Schwyn circuit<br />
which operates the State in Toledo and<br />
842 Bussey St.<br />
has been re-elected president of the Bowling<br />
Green Chamber of Commerce.<br />
New AA Heads at Brockway<br />
BROCKWAY, PA.—Joseph Kosco's Brockway<br />
has been modernized with installation<br />
of new Motiograph AA heads, purchased from<br />
Atlas Theatre Supply, Pittsburgh.<br />
2,500 Television Sets<br />
In Cleveland Area<br />
CLE'VELAND-Although Cleveland's only<br />
television station, WEWS, has been in operation<br />
only since December 17, 2,500 television<br />
sets have already been installed in<br />
the Cleveland area. Eighty per cent are home<br />
installations, according to Jack R. Schmunk,<br />
WEWS sales manager.<br />
The station is geared to a 40-mile transmission,<br />
covering Cuyahoga and Lake counties,<br />
but the programs are picked up as much<br />
as 150 miles away.<br />
Schmunk does not think that television,<br />
after it has passed the novelty stage, will<br />
prove serious competition to motion pictures.<br />
He believes that people are gregarious—that<br />
they like to enjoy their entertainment in<br />
groups or crowds and for this reason will<br />
continue to attend the theatres. "I do think,<br />
however," he said, "that theatres can utilize<br />
television greatly to their own advantage.<br />
One way is to televise trailers of forthcoming<br />
pictures and Whet the appetite of the<br />
home users to see the picture.<br />
The only local theatre incorporating television<br />
into its program is the Telenews. Manager<br />
Charles Burris, who has always broadcast<br />
radio programs in its downtown lounge,<br />
is now featuring television programs.<br />
If negotiations to televise the Indians' baseball<br />
games materialize. It is expected that the<br />
sale of television<br />
sets will be greatly boosted.<br />
To date Manager Bill Veeck has made no<br />
decision.<br />
Drop Sunday Show Ban<br />
To Allow 'Citizen Saint'<br />
BUTLER, PA.—Sunday motion picture exhibitions<br />
are not legal here but permission<br />
was granted for the showing of "Citizen<br />
Saint" at the Notopoulos-Paramount theatres,<br />
the Penn and Capitol, opening Sunday,<br />
April 18. Catholic church leaders, who recently<br />
staged a campaign against Sunday<br />
shows, endorsed the special showing.<br />
Harris to Lose Theatre<br />
PITTSBURGH — The Family in East<br />
Liberty will be lost to the Harris circuit May<br />
1 when the property lease is transferred to a<br />
five and ten cent store. The Harris A house<br />
in East Liberty, the Liberty, continues in<br />
operation.<br />
TIME lA/aU3<br />
FOR NO ONE<br />
Wh«n ron n*»d a apsciaj<br />
tralUr and wont 11 on time,<br />
ploT *cd«.<br />
a«t TOnr ipcdol irallcr*<br />
from rUmock I<br />
78 BOXOFFICE :: April 17, 1948